Edamame in Seattle

10 restaurants in Seattle list edamame on their menus. The cheapest is Shiku at $4.00. The typical price across town is $5.95, and the dearest we found is $8.00 at Ban Hua Sai, so the two ends of the list are $4.00 apart, which is 100% more for the same dish. Of the 10 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 6 sit within a dollar of it and 2 charge more than a dollar over.

We track edamame in 13 other areas and compare them all on edamame across United States. The typical price there runs $6.12 at the median, so Seattle is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 13 of the 13. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Han no Daidokoro in Honolulu, HI, and the highest best price is $5.50 in Naples, FL. The nearest area with it is Portland, about 145 mi away, where the best price is $4.00.

Where is the cheapest edamame in Seattle? Shiku, at $4.00 on 5310 Ballard Avenue Northwest. The same dish reaches $8.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.00.

What should edamame cost here? About $5.95 is the typical price across the 10 kitchens in Seattle that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 2 are more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Portland, about 145 mi away, where the best price is $4.00. That is the same as the best price here.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.